Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry 
The Exclusive Story behind Intuit's Hard-Won Success
It's a modern-day David and Goliath story for the business world: a company dreamed up at a kitchen table, built on explosive PC growth, and forced to battle a giant in the race to revolutionize an industry. This is the story of Intuit, creator of renowned software products like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax-the company that beat mighty Microsoft and changed the way 25 million people manage their finances.
Written by Intuit veteran Suzanne Taylor and seasoned business manager Kathy Schroeder-who were granted exclusive interviews with founder Scott Cook and other key figures- Inside Intuit tells this company's original and fascinating tale for the first time. The book vividly recounts each dramatic stage of Intuit's development: from initial conception to "bet the company" investments; from strokes of marketing genius to disastrous product launches; and from battles for survival to successive victories against arch-rival Microsoft-the company no one else could beat.
Evident throughout this account is the power of Intuit's relentless customer focus, which guided the company from tiny start-up to a 6,000-employee, $1.4 billion business. Instructive and inspiring, Inside Intuit chronicles an enduring company's extraordinary success against overwhelming odds.
"This important book doesn't take any shortcuts in analyzing the building blocks of success. Taylor and Schroeder have written a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the thousand and one decisions that have made Intuit what it is. Highly readable, thorough, and extremely well researched Inside Intuit is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand success in Silicon Valley."
-Emanuel Rosen, author, The Anatomy of Buzz
"Inside Intuit is more than the history of a start-up that grew to dominate a major software category. It is a blueprint of success for entrepreneurs and investors who want to build great businesses in difficult environments."
-Roger McNamee, cofounder, Silver Lake Partners and Integral Capital Partners
"Inside Intuit is a very entertaining book. Any entrepreneur at heart will enjoy and learn from the story of how Scott Cook and Tom Proulx faced so much adversity and came back from the brink of disaster to build a very successful, highly admired Silicon Valley company. Readers can learn many lessons from both Intuit's successes and mistakes. In the end, good ideas, hard work, determination, and strong values really do pay off!"
-Dan Rudolph, Senior Associate Dean/Chief Operating Officer, Stanford Graduate School of Business
"I was thrilled to read the inside story of how Intuit was born and raised. I've always admired Intuit's strict attention to customer needs and feedback. Now I have a much better idea of how that culture was created."
-Stewart Alsop, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
"Inside Intuit offers readers the secrets behind that company's extraordinary success. The authors' insights into how Intuit trounced Microsoft alone are worth the price of the book!"
-Andrea Butter, coauthor, Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry
Reviews
The authors have done an outstanding job of building on that potentially fascinating subject matter by successfully capturing the key elements of how Intuit has continued to succeed as a business model innovator through four CEOs. I was especially pleased to see that the book captures the values that led to this innovation, the organizational and process methods used to stimulate and pursue the innovation, and the motivations of the key innovators.
In addition, the book moves down into the organization to capture the thoughts and emotions of many of the Intuit employees as it moved from its P&G style focus on customer needs to a broad-based expansion through acquisitions to a GE-style disciplined approach to achieve performance in key areas.
In fact, this book was so fine that I had to ask myself what was missing before I could spot any flaws. The only area where the book is a little light is in describing the details of how Intuit's software development changed over time, and what the lessons were. Now, don't mistake my point. There's plenty on that subject (especially when Intuit was a start-up), but there could have been more . . . if this book were to become a case history source on software engineering.
But no book can be everything to everyone, and currently there are few books that explain continuing business model innovation through generations of senior management. So Inside Intuit becomes a must read for those who want to master this critical leadership and management task.
By the way, Inside Intuit is a very apt title. The authors seem to have had unrestrained access to company insiders. The book comes away much richer as a result than any other Silicon Valley saga that I can remember reading. Most of those books focus on one to three people in the company, and leave it at that.
As I finished the book, I wondered what improvements in its continuing business model innovation Intuit will make next. I can hardly wait to find out!
I remember the first time I met Scott Cook. Leo Redmond, at the time managing the Intuit Supplies Group, and I had just finished lunch in Palo Alto. As we drove back to his office, we talked about Quicken and how it was the second product I bought for my first computer in early 1989 (the first was Sim City). Leo said that he'd like me to tell Scott about it. Scott was excited - "You have five years of Quicken data?" He told me to install the latest Quicken beta as soon as I got home - he wanted to know how it handled large data files (mine was over two megabytes at the time). That was nearly ten years ago.
What an experience! Having been hired by Evy Chipman in late 1988 and working closely with every top-echelon executive on the ChipSoft side (Gaylord, Harris, Gleicher, Lane), I never thought I'd be so intimidated - stammering - as I chatted briefly with Scott in his office.
Reading Inside Intuit brings you into Scott's (and many others) office - you are in the presence of greatness when you read this book.